Many people make the mistake of comparing apples to oranges. One has to compare futures to futures and current status to current status. All technologies improve, but some improve more than others.
The Prius gets 46 mpg, while a similar-sized Toyota Corolla gets 31 mpg. One of our investments (Transonic) is trying to make an engine that (if it works!) can be placed in a Prius to produce a vehicle that will have lower carbon emissions than the hybrid Prius at below $1,000 in marginal cost. Other efficient engine efforts abound. If battery technology efforts like Seeo (one of our investments), EEstor, silicon nanowire batteries (or similar efforts that others have funded and many we are evaluating) are successful, we will get the same effect (better petroleum mpg) with a plug-in -- if we can also clean up our grid at the same time!
From my perspective, if I have to pick between a 5-10 times lower cost/performance battery and a cleaned-up electrical grid in the next 5-10 years (or even 20-25 years), or pick cellulosic fuels in 50 percent more efficient ICE engines, I consider the latter lower risk and significantly more probable.
I am confident that cellulosic biofuels without significant land-use impact or biodiversity impact can achieve costs of $1.25/gallon in less than five years and below $1.00 per gallon in 10 years (more details on that, especially on land use / biodiversity and sources of biomass, in a upcoming paper). At this price point, the technology will be adopted broadly and rapidly worldwide, even if oil prices decline substantially.
If hybrids and clean electricity progress faster, or biofuels progress slower, then we will get electricity powering the cars of tomorrow soon. Within 25-50 years, we may well see a transition to an all-electric propulsion fleet, depending on the relative technical progress in battery, fuel, and engine efficiency technology.
One has to guess at the probability and expected value (cost) of such uncertain outcomes. Nonetheless, it appears to me that biofuels are likely to be a significant source of our non-oil transportation energy needs for the next few decades. The extent to which we use them is going to be a function of the cost of oil, the cost of biofuels, and the scalability of biofuel technologies -- as addressed in the chart below.
Powering the Automotive Fleet for the Future (from our 2007 biofuel pathways paper [PDF])
Essentially, I consider replacing coal-based electricity plants (50-year typical life) a much longer, tougher slog than replacing oil with biofuels (15-year car life). No one will dispose of old plants. Incrementally, we will start adding new, cleaner plants, but it will take a long time to clean up the U.S. (and especially the worldwide) grid. (I do believe renewable power plants will take a large share of new plant construction quickly -- see my coal paper [PDF].)
As my white papers make clear, I consider hybrids and biofuels complementary strategies. Incidentally, the GM Volt serial plug-in hybrid is rumored to be a flex-fuel car. Its evolution, and that of its cohorts, will depend upon the relative progress of the technologies. As ICE engine efficiency, biofuels carbon content, battery cost/performance, and electric grid carbon content progress at different rates, the relative percentage of the cars powered from each of these sources will change. Meanwhile, we continue to invest in breakthrough engines, batteries, and biofuels, and hope that all technologies progress rapidly.
Where do I see hope for hybrids (aside from unforecasted battery breakthroughs)? I am cautiously bullish on serial hybrids, which can run on the battery but offer gasoline as a backup fuel -- always available in the tank if the battery runs out. Configurations that, like the Prius, use small amounts of battery capacity (1.6kWh Prius vs 16kWh rumored for the GM Volt) but in serial hybrid configurations like the Volt are promising, as they help engine management and hence engine efficiency.
I have chosen to ignore the expensive cars like the $100,000 Tesla or the Audi plug-in, even though they are potentially successful cars. At that price, they aren't likely to impact the worldwide adoption of low-carbon cars. I have also chosen to ignore folks who rant at SUV buyers. As one blogger said: Why are you telling other people what they value? What does what you value have to do with what others value? We can't change consumer preferences as a fix-all; we need technologies to meet consumer and societal needs while reducing CO2 emissions as much as possible.
For the record, I am a fan of much higher CAFE standards, because they make sense as national and global policy (the recently passed bill was a start). With regards to public funding, I am not a fan of continuing any subsidies for hybrids, biofuels, solar power, wind, etc., beyond the first five to seven years of their market introduction. Aid ought to be developmental, not neverending (for example, large oil subsidies still continue). We have helped all technologies, clean and not so clean, get started (e.g., nuclear, with over $100 billion in cumulative subsidies; we're currently subsidizing IGCC coal with carbon capture and sequestration). I find it somewhat ridiculous that we still have massive subsidies -- much larger than we offer renewables -- for fossil fuels such as coal and oil, as well as nonfossil fuels like nuclear power.
One potential worry for me is a scenario where battery costs actually rise if 50-80 percent of the world's car fleet is running on batteries and the raw materials start to escalate in cost. (This happened to corn, silicon, and other commodities; biomass is unlikely to suffer from this, for reasons explained in an upcoming paper.) Cost and sustainability at scale matter more than anything else.
But as Alan Kay said, the best way to predict the future is to invent it." Our goal is to back entrepreneurs who are doing just that, be they ethanol, butanol, cellulosic gasoline or diesel (we are not fans of classic biodiesel), solar, wind, batteries, higher efficiency lights, cars, pumps, homes, appliances, and more. We have invested in all of these areas, as detailed in my green investing paper [PDF].
I think, as my papers detail, within 25 years we can get most gasoline replaced by biofuels that reduce carbon emissions by 75-85 percent, and have 75 percent or more of the world's car fleet capable of running on these fuels within ten years. That market penetration, infrastructure switchover, consumer acceptance, and cost effectiveness is unlikely to happen with any other technology. (It's possible, of course, with breakthroughs I hope happen but am not currently seeing. If they do happen, I will be the first one funding them -- I'm out trying to find them right now.)
Some of you will surely pick nits, find errors in our calculations, or disagree with the numbers (all corrections are welcome), but I doubt any of it will change my fundamental conclusions. If it does, you will see a new post and a new direction from us.
PS: GM unveiled a V6 flex-fuel Hummer and a partnership with Coskata, which produces cellulosic ethanol. A Prius running on gasoline will have twice the carbon emissions per mile as this 16mpg (estimated) Hummer V6 running on Coskata's ethanol. Papers on renewable electric/coal/nuclear power, biodiesel, biomass, biofuels pathways, food vs. fuel, and green investing, as well as our portfolio, are available here.
Do we need nuclear and coal plants for baseload power?
Cash for Clunkers brought us ... more clunkers!
Comments
View as Threaded
amazingdrx Posted 1:04 am
16 Jan 2008
Ethanol, from cellulose or corn or sugar cane, does not have lower GHG emissions than gasoline. The illusion of cleanliness is created by a misperception of the nature of soil and the carbon/CO2 cycle.
You are claiming that since the plant mass used to make the fuel, removed CO2 from the atmosphere, you can simply subtract that amount of CO2 from the amount given off when the ethanol is burned to find the total GHG effect of fuel farming. Adding a bit of CO2 for oil based tractor fuel and chemical fertilizer.
Here is the flaw, the plant mass already growing on the land used for ethanol production, actually did remove CO2 from the atmosphere and sequester it in the soil, before it was used for chemical agriculture and eventually fuel farming.
Furthermore, millenia of carbon was stored in that soil before it was exploited with chemical agriculture.
Electric power from renewable sources actually does prevent GHG production. Ethanol production prevents CO2 from being sequestered year after year. To the tune of 1.8 tons of CO2 per acre per year in the case of prairie land. That is the same as releasing more cO2, from the point of view of the carbon balance.
The Audi plugin has the potential to be much cheaper to manufacture than hybrids like the Prius, with complicated series/parallel transmissions.
It's true that a series hybrid with a much more efficient generator could have much higher average mileage than the Audi. Something like the Boeing solid oxide fuel cell/turbine that they are developing for backup power on their airliners. It is 60 or 70% efficient.
As far as adoption speed, regular cars do not do well on ethanol. Flex fuel cars would be a big capital mistake if better, cheaper batteries like the Firefly design go into mass production soon.
Firefly has its graphite foam lead acid battery coming out to the semi market right about now. This design doesn't suffer from material shortages.
You cited silicon as an example of shortage that increased the price of the end product. Only refined silicon is in short supply, with silicon being one of the most abundant elements on earth. Depite refined silicon shortage, the cost of silicon based computing devices per computing power has dropped precipitously over the decades of the computer age.
Plugin hybrids don't need expensive quick charge batteries, hours long recharge is fine. Pure electric plugins will need quick charge nano tech batteries.
I don't know much about the efforts to increase ICE efficiency, but I see it involves adding computers upon computers and excessive complication to achieve small incremental advances. Plugin hybrids are a huge advance all at once, in the case of the Audi design, with a lot less complication.
A 50% increase in efficiency in an ICE could take a 40 mpg car to 60 mpg. A plugin hybrid could average well over 100 mpg. Probably over 200 mpg.
As far as speed of rollout of plugin hybrids and a renewable smart grid, that will take time. But these technologies both coexist well with the present system and chip away at it.
Solar panels can be added onto the present grid, and smart grid devices added to store that power as cooling or heating or as battery power in plugin hybrids.
All the technologies you are invested in have a rollout time as well. Cellulosic ethanol is lagging behind its promised rollout year after year. I think plugins powered by renewable electricity will beat the rest, mainly because a gallon equivalent of electric "gas" costs 66 cents. With solar panels on your roof, that payback in a few years, that cost quickly drops to near zero cents per gallon equivalent.
As a gallon of liquid fuel, gasoline or ethanol, rises inexorably through 4, 5, 6, 7... dollars per gallon. You can't claim ethanol will reduce liquid fuel prices, since we only have enough spare biomass for maybe 10% of liquid fuel to come from ethanol.
Put your money on the smart grid, internet enabled power grid that carries all the information now traveling through phone lines, cable tv lines, and cell phone towers, and uses distributed computing to smooth out the supply and demand on a 100% renewable power grid.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
Permalink
amazingdrx Posted 1:26 am
16 Jan 2008
Just a side note, did you hear that blood viscosity is the most direct predictor of heart and circulation problems?
With the failure of multi-billion dollar cholesterol drugs, apparently studies were "flawed" (more book cooking by drug industry funded "science"), Transonic's flow measuring technology seems a good bet.
Test the viscosity lowering drug (water?, hehey) by monitering the blood flow in the patient (victim?)? That would be a good study that might benefit the public (rather than the drug industry), proving that drinking more water could prevent heart problems. After all, water is the main lubricating fluid in blood.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
Permalink
sunflower Posted 1:50 am
16 Jan 2008
It seems Vinod is looking for the next big thing, looking under all the rocks, including here at Grist. Kudos Vinod. The demand for carbon reduction is likely a fast expanding stable market, more relevant to coal than to oil and gas.
The A123 battery was developed at MIT. My suggestion, if I may, is to look at what the smart kids are doing at Universities, like MIT. Some very good stuff there, lots of motivation.
Permalink
scatter Posted 2:00 am
16 Jan 2008
...And I've just seen your response to the previous part. I'll be interested to see your response.
Permalink
theBike45 Posted 2:14 am
16 Jan 2008
of these vehicles are within reach within the next few years and are priced below $30,000.
The ethanol required to replace the smal amounts of gasoline still required by these hypothetical commuters can easily be replaced by ethanol produced in this country. There is NO need for battery-only all-electric vehicles. Period.
Permalink
amazingdrx Posted 2:37 am
16 Jan 2008
Meanwhile the grid will become 100% renewable and batteries will approach the recharge time of a gas pump fill up, 5 to 10 minutes range. And batteries will approach the energy density of liquid fueled ICE systems.
At that point cars can be pure electric plugin powered with zero GHG kwhs. If you own your own solar on your roof or wind then you get the kwhs free after a few years payback on the energy system.
In the end, no land and soil burned out for gas guzzling, and a quick reduction in oil use, resulting in no oil (or ethanol)use sometime over the next 10 to 20 years from now.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
Permalink
GreyFlcn Posted 3:02 am
16 Jan 2008
I don't believe thats anywhere near possible.
Make any sort of magical liquid conversion technology you want, but without enough feedstock it's worthless.
Algae, for instance, doesn't seem to be panning out to be as glorious as previously assumed. Especially not for any ideal price-point.
http://greyfalcon.net/algae4
http://greyfalcon.net/algae
The real problem is photosynthesis itself. It can only capture less than a 10th of the sunlight it receives. And in practice, far less than that.
http://greyfalcon.net/sugarsolar
http://www.luz2.com/apage/12219.php (For comparison)
One potential worry for me is a scenario where battery costs actually rise if 50-80 percent of the world's car fleet is running on batteries and the raw materials start to escalate in cost.
The same could be said for biofuels feedstocks.
The difference with batteries is that they can be recycled, and there's a large variety of chemistries and thus raw materials to choose from.
The Zebra battery, for instance, operates off of Aluminum and Salt.
Ultracapacitors offer a whole other variety of raw materials to choose from.
If there's any concern about the limits of raw materials to fuel transportation, it's biofuels.
http://greyfalcon.net/biolimits.png
To see my answers on the question "Where will biomass come from" and "what will it do to water, biodiversity and soil carbon" please come back next week.
So is this a four-part series now?
Still haven't seen anything that remotely answers those question, other than:
"I am confident"
Permalink
odograph Posted 3:21 am
16 Jan 2008
The corolla is "similar" to the prius if you think that EPA ranked "small cars" are similar to EPA ranked "midsize cars."
FWIW, the EPA's pdf on fuel economy lists their breakdown. It is apparently based on passenger + cargo volume:
Sedans
==
Minicompact: under 85 cu ft
Subcompact: 85 - 99
Compact: 100 to 109
Midszie 110 to 119
Large: 120 or more
Permalink
odograph Posted 3:25 am
16 Jan 2008
It is NEVER of course midsize, like the prius.
Permalink
tidal Posted 3:37 am
16 Jan 2008
Is it the cartoons from pages 11-21 here?
Think of all the new farms on the Canadian Shield and in Siberia! The new beaches everywhere! The speeded up hydrological cycle! It's an economicological miracle!!
And then a miracle occurs!
:(
Permalink
apsmith Posted 4:36 am
16 Jan 2008
While we obviously don't have access to all the background claimed here, I think the argument boils down to one of capital cost. Khosla's claim is that switching vehicles to "flex-fuel" and oil production to cellulosic ethanol will have lower capital cost than switching vehicles to plugin hybrids and coal plants to renewables. Well...
He may have a point, but I would like to see the numbers more plainly. Since we don't have cellulosic ethanol on line at large scale yet, we probably don't have a good handle on its capital costs. Say it depends on a certain kind of bio-reactor which has a lifetime of, say, 10 years. So we have to ramp up production of those bio-reactors to a very large scale - what's the cost of building all those bio-reactor production plants themselves? Cellulosic ethanol will depend on some new large-scale biomass farming, say of switchgrass. We'll need farm machinery equipment designed for these jobs - what's the capital cost of building all those extra harvesters?
The argument that we won't close down old coal generators is, I sincerely hope, just wrong; that's exactly what a carbon cap and trade/auction regulatory system will do, with the worst ones closing first. It's a perfect market-regulatory combination to cut CO2 emissions - what's Khosla's position on "cap and trade/auction" anyway?
Permalink
odograph Posted 4:51 am
16 Jan 2008
(I still think the valid comparison is between the prius and current buying patterns, which makes the prius an immediate win on purchase price, and again each time you fill up the tank.)
Permalink
Biodiversivist Posted 5:51 am
16 Jan 2008
Let's put that into perspective. That is a 50% improvement in gas mileage. Which corresponds to a 50% reduction in CO2. A plug-in version would blow that number out of the water.
One of our investments (Transonic) is trying to make an engine that (if it works!) can be placed in a Prius to produce a vehicle that will have lower carbon emissions than the hybrid Prius at below $1,000 in marginal cost.
I am assuming that it will do this by burning less fuel, because liquid fuel, once combusted, becomes gaseous and the only way to minimize the amount of gas is to burn less liquid fuel, which means putting this engine in a hybrid Prius would be really great.
Other efficient engine efforts abound. If battery technology efforts like Seeo (one of our investments), EEstor, silicon nanowire batteries (or similar efforts that others have funded and many we are evaluating) are successful, we will get the same effect (better petroleum mpg) with a plug-in -- if we can also clean up our grid at the same time!
We have to or the global warming game is over. The fuel burned in our cars is irrelevant if we don't.
From my perspective, if I have to pick between a 5-10 times lower cost/performance battery and a cleaned-up electrical grid in the next 5-10 years (or even 20-25 years), or pick cellulosic fuels in 50 percent more efficient ICE engines, I consider the latter lower risk and significantly more probable.
We all hope they do become economically and most importantly, environmentally viable. So is this what this whole debate boils down to? A bet that they will become viable? I also fail to see why you are critical of existing technology that is already cutting carbon emissions 50%? At this point in your argument, you seem to think that these technologies are mutually exclusive. If we ever manage to produce a biofuel that is less environmentally destructive than fossil fuels, that technology will be greatly enhanced by other technologies that improve efficiency, be it new ICE engines or electric or combinations of all of the above.
I am confident that cellulosic biofuels without significant land-use impact or biodiversity impact can achieve costs of $1.25/gallon in less than five years and below $1.00 per gallon in 10 years (more details on that, especially on land use / biodiversity and sources of biomass, in a upcoming paper). At this price point, the technology will be adopted broadly and rapidly worldwide, even if oil prices decline substantially.
We all hope you are right. At this point in your argument, the opposing viewpoints seem to have disappeared. We are all hoping to find a replacement for oil that is not worse than oil. We all agree that existing efficiencies must greatly improve. We all know that the existing car culture and car designs will have to radically change.
Nonetheless, it appears to me that biofuels are likely to be a significant source of our non-oil transportation energy needs for the next few decades.
We are not going to run out of oil in the next few decades. We are not going to run out of coal in the next few decades, which can be turned into a liquid fuel. It all boils down to which fuel is going to cost less and most importantly in my view, which will be less environmentally destructive. If we can find biofuels that are not more environmentally destructive than fossil fuels, then we should use them, if not, then we should not. There are none being produced in an economically viable manner that can make that claim today. I for one am trying to keep biofuels from consuming what is left of the planet.
The extent to which we use them is going to be a function of the cost of oil, the cost of biofuels, and the scalability of biofuel technologies ...
You characteristically failed to list the environmental ramifications of the biofuel, which reinforces my suspicion that you are placing much less emphasis on global warming and biodiversity loss than you would like us to believe.
Essentially, I consider replacing coal-based electricity plants (50-year typical life) a much longer, tougher slog than replacing oil with biofuels (15-year car life). No one will dispose of old plants. Incrementally, we will start adding new, cleaner plants, but it will take a long time to clean up the U.S. (and especially the worldwide) grid
It is highly unlikely that cellulosic biofuels, should they ever get out of the research stage and be proven both economically and environmentally viable, could scale up in 15 years to replace more than a fraction of oil used, especially if it is being burned in today's car technology. But like I said, if they can be made environmentally friendly, great. And I repeat, cars are irrelevant if we don't clean up the grid.
As my white papers make clear, I consider hybrids and biofuels complementary strategies.
Well, I'm glad you finally said so here! Up until now your tone has been to bash this technology as if it were not only incompatible with other fuels, but that it is also getting in the way of their development..." I was mostly discussing Prius-type parallel hybrids and all the support they get ... The Prius and hybrids have been positioned by Toyota's marketing machine. The public is gullible ... The Prius is the corn ethanol of hybrid cars, and we should recognize that ... The Prius is selling well as a car model (so are Gucci bags)..."
"Incidentally, the GM Volt serial plug-in hybrid is rumored to be a flex-fuel car ..." ...that will probably never burn E85 as 90% of the existing flex fuel cars don't.
Its evolution, and that of its cohorts, will depend upon the relative progress of the technologies. As ICE engine efficiency, biofuels carbon content, battery cost/performance, and electric grid carbon content progress at different rates, the relative percentage of the cars powered from each of these sources will change. Meanwhile, we continue to invest in breakthrough engines, batteries, and biofuels, and hope that all technologies progress rapidly.
We all seem to be in agreement all of a sudden.
Where do I see hope for hybrids (aside from unforecasted battery breakthroughs)?
You mean, other than the fact that the first generation of them, the Prius (itself an unforecasted breakthrough), is already reducing GHG by 50% over the 31 MPG Corrola?
I am cautiously bullish on serial hybrids, which can run on the battery but offer gasoline as a backup fuel -- always available in the tank if the battery runs out. Configurations that, like the Prius, use small amounts of battery capacity (1.6kWh Prius vs 16kWh rumored for the GM Volt) but in serial hybrid configurations like the Volt are promising, as they help engine management and hence engine efficiency.
I'm less so because of all of the batteries required and because I am skeptical of energy conversion. Aircraft recip engines also run at constant RPM, which allows for more efficiency. It would be nice if we could gain that efficiency with cars but because of the thermodynamic bottleneck of the generator, roughly four out of every ten revolutions of that Volt recip engine will be dissipated to the air as waste heat instead of putting power into those batteries or spinning the car wheels with the electric motor. That will be tough to overcome.
I have also chosen to ignore folks who rant at SUV buyers.
You mean rants like this one.
http://home.comcast.net/~russ676/photo/ayellowhummer.JPG
As one blogger said: Why are you telling other people what they value? What does what you value have to do with what others value?
I could not find that quote in the comments field of your previous posts. I also don't know where the quote stops and your opinion begins. But here is a quote for you:
"Of the 10 that have seen sales go up this year, 70 percent are small or midsize passenger cars. Of the 13 that have seen sales decline, 70 percent are full-size models, SUVs or other light trucks. The smaller, more fuel-efficient cars are the winners, and the heavier, thirstier cars are the losers."
We can't change consumer preferences as a fix-all
But, changing the liquid fuel used is also not a fix all, so I'm not sure what your point is. The Prius is the shining example of what can be done when consumer preferences change.
we need technologies to meet consumer and societal needs while reducing CO2 emissions as much as possible.
I don't think anyone disagrees with that. We are also saying we should also work to change consumer preferences. They are, after all, mostly a matter of perception.
For the record, I am a fan of much higher CAFE standards, because they make sense as national and global policy (the recently passed bill was a start). With regards to public funding, I am not a fan of continuing any subsidies for hybrids, biofuels, solar power, wind, etc., beyond the first five to seven years of their market introduction.
"...five to seven years of their market introduction?" What is your definition of market introduction? Ethanol has been subsidized for three decades. You are a little behind schedule calling for a halt. The hybrid subsidies have done little but provide ammunition for their critics.
Aid ought to be developmental, not neverending (for example, large oil subsidies still continue). We have helped all technologies, clean and not so clean, get started (e.g., nuclear, with over $100 billion in cumulative subsidies; we're currently subsidizing IGCC coal with carbon capture and sequestration). I find it somewhat ridiculous that we still have massive subsidies -- much larger than we offer renewables -- for fossil fuels such as coal and oil, as well as nonfossil fuels like nuclear power.
You are preaching to the choir now.
One potential worry for me is a scenario where battery costs actually rise if 50-80 percent of the world's car fleet is running on batteries and the raw materials start to escalate in cost. (This happened to corn, silicon, and other commodities; biomass is unlikely to suffer from this, for reasons explained in an upcoming paper.)
Uh, you forgot cellulosic in your list. This is precisely why efficiency has to have our highest priority. Rising costs of energy can be nullified by using that much less of it.
Cost and sustainability at scale matter more than anything else. But as Alan Kay said, the best way to predict the future is to invent it." Our goal is to back entrepreneurs who are doing just that, be they ethanol, butanol, cellulosic gasoline or diesel (we are not fans of classic biodiesel), solar, wind, batteries, higher efficiency lights, cars, pumps, homes, appliances, and more. We have invested in all of these areas,
Again, you are preaching to the choir but hybrids, the one and only technology actually reducing GHG by 50%, appear to be missing from your list this time.
I think, as my papers detail, within 25 years we can get most gasoline replaced by biofuels that reduce carbon emissions by 75-85 percent, and have 75 percent or more of the world's car fleet capable of running on these fuels within ten years.
Yes, as you have said many times now. All based on a fuel that has not proven commercially or environmentally viable.
That market penetration, infrastructure switchover, consumer acceptance, and cost effectiveness is unlikely to happen with any other technology.
Hmm, as Odo pointed out, one of the hottest selling cars in America, the Ford Explorer, has been eclipsed by the Prius, so, obviously consumer acceptance is changing. Evidence on the ground seems to be refuting your predictions. The mandates and taxation shoving ethanol down consumer's throats is in sharp contrast.
(It's possible, of course, with breakthroughs I hope happen but am not currently seeing. If they do happen, I will be the first one funding them -- I'm out trying to find them right now.)
Odd. Your entire premise is counting on a breakthrough of commercially and environmentally viable cellulosic ethanol.
Some of you will surely pick nits, find errors in our calculations, or disagree with the numbers (all corrections are welcome), but I doubt any of it will change my fundamental conclusions. If it does, you will see a new post and a new direction from us.
Indeed some of us have but your doubt gives me doubt. Skepticism and debate are two legs of the Scientific method. Without the Scientific method the truth will remain hidden from us by our personal subconscious biases, wants, and needs. The ongoing destruction of biodiversity and carbon sinks by biofuels has to be stopped and soon.
PS: GM unveiled a V6 flex-fuel Hummer and a partnership with Coskata, which produces cellulosic ethanol. A Prius running on gasoline will have twice the carbon emissions per mile as this 16mpg (estimated) Hummer V6 running on Coskata's ethanol.
Riiiiight. There is no such thing as commercially and environmentally viable cellulosic ethanol. And if there were, a Prius running on it would kick that Hummer's ass ; )
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
Permalink
JMG Posted 8:27 am
16 Jan 2008
What we need is to reduce CO2 emissions as much as required to stop destabilizing and crashing the climate and all its life support systems, which meeting as much of the true societal needs as we can and as much of the consumer preferences as the first two allow.
You have got it bass-ackwards in a fatal way.
Save the world: Reduce greenhouse gas emissions 5% annually.
Permalink
JohnMashey Posted 5:51 pm
16 Jan 2008
1. R&D management: OK, we won't go off into that, but can you say what sorts of things you would and wouldn't fund? I assume biofuels research would be zeroed, but what would you fund?
2. Can I assume you've spent substantial time living / working on farm(s), including some in mid-west (since that's where the biofuel action mostly is)? If so, can you say a little about farm size, crops grown, location, what sort of machinery was used, how far from a railhead?
Also, by any chance, have you spent much time in Amish country and how was your assessment of that?
3. At some point, it would be nice to move to a discussion of what a reasonably-sustainable future might look like, say in the canonical 2100, but at least some time after petroleum is ~gone.
4. The cow-vs-car example .... In the long run, there are a bunch of other tradeoffs that strike me as much more relevant, including quite possibly cow-vs-horse, for which we at least have historical precedent, and current precedent, i.e., the aforementioned Old Amish.
==
Now, from now on, let's assume for 3, the scenario of:
petroleum too expensive for most people to burn
electrify everything that makes any sense
biofuels disallowed
5. Poison Darts, part II, p69 says:
"This suggest to me a strategy to alleviate rural poverty and relieve pressure on nature by getting people out of subsistence farming and into cities and jobs, leaving the production of food to larger companies... In general, however, large farms tied into the free market are much more efficient than small subsistence farms."
Q5.1: is this still your view? It sounds exactly like large-scale agriculture as practiced in N. America, which in practice has created efficient farms, but has tended raise the distance food travels from producer to consumer, and certainly allows the existence of large dense cities. Of course, while subsistence farms are pretty clear, above that is a wide range of larger farms, from ones that let people eat pretty well, but generate only modest cash, through quite serious money-making businesses.
According to:
http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/EIB3/EIB3.htm
41 percent of workforce in agriculture
21.5 percent
4 percent
1.9 percent
The numbers for farm population are fairly similar. Clearly, one of the reasons the USA got rich was having efficient farmers and good enough transport to get food to consumers in big cities.
http://www.ers.usda.gov/StateFacts/KS.htm gives the parameters for Kansas, for example, whose farmland was 90% of the total area in 2002., with an average size of 733 acres, although it's worth looking at the distribution of sizes as well, since it's right-skewed by some big farms.
Q5.2: I'd assume that 700-acres is a big farm. Can you say more about where you draw the line for subsistence farming? [I.e., what you want to discourage]. In China? in the US? i.e., do you have a minimum acreage/income below which you'd suggest people move out?
Q5.3 Can you say what your plan is for getting food, for example, from Kansas farms into New York City. As you noted in your book, NYC, especially Manhattan, doesn't have a lot of farmland.
6. p.89 says:
"I also use it (SUV) for my business, which involves hauling heavy tools and pulling a trailer."
Can you discuss the usage pattern? Are your trips short enough and/or hauling light enough cargo that you could use an electric-only vehicle? I.e., this is a test case for the (petroleum really expensive, biofuels disallowed) scenario.
7. Again, given this scenario, can you describe the nature of the farm machinery used in efficient farms?
horses? {there are prosperous 100-acre farms run by individual families with no electricity or powered machinery]
smaller electric tractors [these exist]
larger tractors or combines, say like a John Deere 9860 STS, with a rated horsepower of 480HP and a 305gallon fuel tank. [Why so big? welll...] Is there an electric-only design to replace that?
8. Again, given this scenario, what's the plan to get, say grain, from farm to consumer?
grain trucks, again, usually 300-400HP to get to elevator.
electrified trains?
barges? [Down the Mississippi]
ships? [Say, kansas->japan]. I know of people doing kites/sails, and there is always nuclear, I guess.
[Of these, I know of electrified solutions for the second, although it would take a large investment to cover, for example Kansas, with electrified trains, especially enough shortline tracks to get close enough to each farm to avoid diesel-powered trucks.
9. And there are a few miscellaneous other items, for which I haven't yet seen all-electric replacements. Do you have a plan for these?
- Class 8 trucks
See http://www.transportation.anl.gov/research/technology_ana ...
Fire engines: a moderate-sized one, 50 gallons diesel, 350HP.
Bulldozers, or most products built by Caterpillar:
http://www.cat.com/cda/layout?m=37840&x=7
- I won't ask about airplanes, since in a no-petroleum, no-bio-jetfuel world, there is likely no Boeing or Airbus, and a lot of airports could be turned back into farms. Maybe dirigibles come back?
Anyway, I'm keen to hear answers/proposals.
-John Mashey
Permalink
amazingdrx Posted 12:19 am
17 Jan 2008
Oil will not run out today, plugin battery electric power trains will not approach the energy density of liquid fueled ICEs at 5 pm, a renwable smart grid won't be ready tonight.
Try and think in terms of a transition to plugin hybrids, that get 100s of miles per gallon, while a renewable smart grid takes over electric power generation, and eventually battery technology allows for dispensing with liquid fuel entirely.
With the increase in mileage and reduction in oil use, oil reserves will last a few decades longer, enough time to go all renewable electric with alomost all transportation. High speed electric trains can replace planes domestically. The remaining liquid fuel use, for hybrid electric aircraft can come from algal biofuel when oil runs out. The biofuel production collectors mounted on roofs, instead of chemical farmed fuel crops devestating the land.
Think about medium and even small farms going organic, supported by energy revenue from solar, wind, and biogas systems. Organic farming that uses robotics for higher productivity than traditional laborious chemical/tractor free Amish-style farming. BTW, amish farms still compete in your cherished "free" markets.
Now imagine this transition happening over the next 10 to 20 years. Does that help?
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
Permalink
Jon Rynn Posted 1:30 am
17 Jan 2008
This is why you would have to starve the world's population to run the American car fleet exclusively on biofuels -- they simply don't give us enough energy returned on energy invested.
So, as Mashey points out, we have a problem even with nontransportation equipment, such as construction and farming equipment, nevermind air travel. If Vulcans came down and took over the planet, the logical thing to do would be to save oil for construction, farming, etc., but that won't happen (I don't think?). So we will be in a much more constrained world, in which centralizing economic and living activity in cities will make more sense, partly in order to minimize the energy required for construction, farming,etc. And it seems to me that permaculture, biointensive type farming techniques should be getting a lot of research dollars in order to localize farming, even around NYC.
What we need to do is put BioD in charge of a national lab to develop 20 mph or lower electric, partly human-powered, very low energy (and light, since they're going slow) vehicles that at least make the near suburbs livable. That's were the transportation research (and VC) dollars should be going, not biofuels or hybrids.
Permalink
amazingdrx Posted 2:03 am
17 Jan 2008
I agree, mass produce it now!
But mass produce (convert used cars)plugin hybrid cars too. With the dropping monetary standard of living in the US, most people will be better off trading in their second and third cars for a plugin bike.
Quality of life can climb, even as quanitiy of cash wanes. I recycle the automotive detritus of a status based transportation ethic. Why not add on some used golf cart parts to my used car? That's what I'm thinking. Hehey.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
Permalink
Jon Rynn Posted 2:16 am
17 Jan 2008
Permalink
Nickz Posted 3:33 am
17 Jan 2008
I think the argument here is that marginal new electricity demand from EV's would come from increased coal generation. To make this argument in the strongest way would be to assume that wind and solar will expand regardless to handle new demand and begin to replace coal, and that any new demand will come from coal.
I disagree: EV/PHEV's will enable wind, because it will create demand at night, and dynamically scheduled charging will buffer wind's variability. Thus, EV/PHEV's will support the creation of wind generation to power them, in a very elegant synergy.
Permalink
JohnMashey Posted 12:15 pm
17 Jan 2008
I used to go through Amish areas [Lancaster, PA], respect them highly as farmers, even if I'd go mad with that lifestyle. I understand why they use horses, and it's not just for the power and transport. I'm not sure what the comment "amish farms still compete in your cherished free markets" meant. Of course they do, they always have, and their food was always eat-local delightful.
amazingdrx: can you explain your farm experience? and where you live? It's been a long time since I grew up on a farm, so maybe the world has changed more than I can imagine, and I'm always willing to learn. I love seeing laser-based automatic milking machines, and wireless sensor nets for watering control, and John Deere selling software and GPS systems. A far cry from the old John Deere tractor I drove as a kid! Of course, some of this stuff only makes sense on big farms that can ship food cheap.
So, how about we go down the "organic farming that uses robotics" path? I'm also an old computer guy, so this interests me a lot, but just saying "robotics" doesn't tell me much.
I'm certainly keen on building more railroads and electrifying; I've often used railroads in Europe in preference to planes. [London->paris via Chunnel is certainly nicer than trekking to Heathrow, flying to Charles DeGaulle, and then getting into Paris.] Can you talk about cost/mile, and point at recent documents on electrification plans in the US? In particular, how many miles are needed to do all the abandoned shortlines to get to mid-West farms?
-John Mashey
Permalink
Jon Rynn Posted 1:48 pm
17 Jan 2008
What if everybody lived within a NYC, and there existed a farm belt around each NYC, consisting of biointensive farms as designed by John Jeavons, that is, each person could be supported by a garden of 4,000 square feet (and add in 2,000 more for chickens/fish), then 8 million people could live in 300 square miles of NYC and have a farm belt of about 1800 square miles around each NYC, and be fed. This would also only take up 2 percent of the land area of the US. But I also assume that an extra 2 million people would be needed to farm these 1800 square miles, to make food for the city and for themselves.
The point of this is to argue, among other things, that we need not depend on the Midwest and huge farms to feed ourselves. Since the soil is so good there, it might be a good place for fruits and vegetables, grown sustainably, without using up all of the rich soil and the water from the Oglala reservoir, and letting the prairie come back in which the buffalo could roam. This would also drastically cut back, or even eliminate, the need for fossil fuels in agriculture. End of rant.
Permalink
amazingdrx Posted 3:43 pm
17 Jan 2008
Oh please, let us trade carbon. Hedge fund heroes will solve everything with free market trading, like they did when they "freeed up" the mortgage markets. Hehey, it's in that vein. (BTW, the little weaselly fellers made a big killing shorting today's "correction")
But at least you are only skeptical of robotic organic farming. You accept the other solutions?
I wrote up a nice blog entry on it. Here.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog/_archives/2007/12/7/ ...
I think it would work fine on any size farm or even an Amish farm, they have solar PV now you know.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
Permalink
amazingdrx Posted 3:49 pm
17 Jan 2008
What's next, robotic farm machinery controlled by laptop from their buggy seat?
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
Permalink
JohnMashey Posted 5:54 am
19 Jan 2008
Note: amazingdrx seems to think that when asks a question about X, that one is disagreeing with X, whereas I'm just asking about X without expressing an implied opinion one way or another. Also, I ignore for now any issues of getting to the proposed state ijn favor of trying to understand your proposed endpoint.
But:
1) I think you forgot the area to feed the 2M people who farm, which raises it to 2250 sq miles of actual cropland.
That is (roughly):
Nassau, Suffolk on Long island
Westchester, Rockland in NY
Hudson, Bergen, Essex, Union in NJ
2) I'm not sure, but I think your area is the actual used for crops. No farming area is 100% crop area, but the percentage expansion differs radically according to what model of farming you think you're using. For instance, here are a few of the pure cases [any reality would be a mix]:
a) Everyone lives in NYC and the farmers commute out to the farms, probably via train, then via bicycle, or hitching rides on electric trucks needed to bring the food back. That probably has the lowest overhead, assuming the +25% density in NYC is OK. One can probably get back with roads that are mostly one-lane.
b) Everyone lives in the farm area, clustered in farming villages, hopefully near rail lines. They go out to their fields on bicycles.
c) Families live on individual farms.
I haven't looked at overhead numbers in enough detail, but as a WAG, I'd guess one needs to add, at least, Middlesex & Monmouth countines in NJ.
3) What do you have in mind for ownership & societal roles in this scheme? (Parallel to 2)
a) Here, there are 10M residents of NYC.
a1) 2M Could be farm population, but commute.
a2) At another extreme, every person could spend 20% of their time farming, probably via some kind of collectives.
a3) Or, a person could spend every 5th year farming.
a4) or, there could be something like national service, in which people spend X years of their life farming, and then either continue if they like it or do something else. If so, I vote for teenage years ... farm kids rarely get in trouble, they're too busy.
b) This of course has many existence proofs, from individual farms around a village to Israeli kibbutz, etc, etc.
c) This is typically family farms.
In cases b) and c), people actually live out there. What facilities are there? Are there schools, or home-schooling? Do kids work on the farms? [yes, pervasively true in farm country].
Are there shops, restaurants, fire stations, government buildings? Trees? (I think that this plan means cutting down most trees in those counties. If you watn to keep trees, we need a couple more counties
What are the water supply and electrical systems expected? I assume human wastes are recycled. Also, did you mean to rule out dairy cows purposefully?
I think the general question is the shape of life out on the farms. A lot of traditional farming worldwide is b), sometimes with truly minimal facilities beyond what's needed to farm.
The issue for b) and c) is how much infrastructure is needed to make the farm life attractive on a sustained basis, to avoid an Eloi/Morlock bifurcation.
Also, do you have any info on the expected amount of labor required using Jeavons-style methods, i.e., in some of these scenarios, a person grows enough food for themself + 4 others. In others (b & c), 2M people live out there, but with kids, seniors, schoolteachers, etc, so now each working farmer supports themself + 5? 6? others. I.e., one needs to know this in order to figure out sizes of villages and/or individual farms.
Anyway, more later, those questions are just the tip of the iceberg.
-John Mashey
Permalink
Jon Rynn Posted 6:58 am
19 Jan 2008
The first point I want to make is that I chose Jeavons because he seemed to be the only one in the permaculture/organic/biointensive sphere who actually had some fairly hard statistics on how much area was needed to feed an individual. I think Heinberg, in a recent speech, pleaded (if I may use that term) with the organic community to do more research so that we can have a better knowledge base to figure these things out.
Second, in my original thought experiment, I thought the 2 million would be living in the farming area. This seems to be the drift of the Heinberg/Sharon Astyk ideas on the subject, although they don't necessarily specify that the farmers would be close to the city. My thought was that they would live in a single family home, although the kibbutz model would also appeal to me, personally, and might be more practical -- and judging from the technological prowess of many kibbutzim, might be a good way to go "high tech", amazingdrx style.
But you're also right to bring up the problem of schools, etc, which would make the thing more complicated -- I think there would have to be good electric bus/rail service into and out of the city, including a way to get product in, obviously -- I'm assuming no diesel trucks. But maybe commuting might have some possibility. I also like the idea of teenage years -- high school is a waste anyway, but that's another subject.
Anyway, small children beckon, all for now.
Permalink
Jon Rynn Posted 7:22 am
19 Jan 2008
And also, I realize much of the suburbs would have to be reconfigured to allow for farm belts, although I suppose some of it could be fairly easily converted back to farm land (the garden state?). If you relax the NYC requirement for city size, you could envision farm belts around mid-sized towns, say of 100,000 person size as well.
Permalink
amazingdrx Posted 7:56 am
19 Jan 2008
Dakotan farmers that raise cattle are going under because of drought. Bison are eco friendly to the prairie. The prairie can survive drought and it stores carbon, helping the GHG balance.
Spread the word, in the spirit of Teddy Roosevelt (the guy who caught a bullet, from a would be assassin, before a campaign speech and gave the speech anyway, had the bullet removed later) we need a new national park. Get Canada to join up and equal the US acreage on their side of the border.
Tell your representatives in government.
It'll make a great wind farm as well.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
Permalink
Jon Rynn Posted 8:08 am
19 Jan 2008
Permalink
JohnMashey Posted 2:20 pm
19 Jan 2008
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dairy_cattle
Over the last few hundred years, cattle have generally been bred to be optimized either for meat or for milk, but not usually both. We had Guernseys, which have been around 300 years or so:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guernsey_cattle
Bisons are not dairy cattle, and even if they were, having them in the Great Plains wouldn't help NYC much.
So, I ask again:
a) Is it part of the proposal to eliminate milk, cheese, butter, yogurt, ice cream, etc from NYC's diet?
That is a plausible position, i.e., some people are vegans and some are lactose-intolerant to some degree or other.
b) Or was it an oversight?
-John Mashey
Permalink
Jon Rynn Posted 3:04 pm
19 Jan 2008
Permalink
JohnMashey Posted 7:46 am
20 Jan 2008
http://www.plantea.com/manure.htm
Dairy-cow manure is highly-regarded.
I did learn a new fact from this article, about the best manure from zoo animals.
==
I suspect we've gotten as deep into this farm stuff as makes any sense. How about shifting to a different turf.
Suppose your vision for NYC could come to pass, basically turning the counties I mentioned, plus maybe a few more, into intensive-farmed areas to feed NYC. I.e., let's just assume that as an endgoal for the sake of discussion.
Since your expertise is more in PolySci than in farming, how about discussing the political aspects of:
a) The government structure at the endgoal.
b) How one gets there. For a specific example, can you go through the process by which Westchester County turns back into farms?
c) In general, what public-policy changes need to be made to head in this direction? [There's one obvious one that doesn't need discussion, which is to help save existing farms in the area.]
-John Mashey
Permalink
Jon Rynn Posted 9:36 am
20 Jan 2008
The ideal path is to make cities more attractive, sort of a reverse of the suburbanization that took place after world war II. (Ryan Avent's latest post goes over much of this). That would probably require massive building of attractive apartment complexes, a big upgrade in public schools, etc. According to Professor Christopher Leinberger, up to 40% of the population would like to move to walkable communities, but maybe 20% of the country is anywhere near that (Cato Institute thinks only about 20% want that, but I trust Leinberger more). So the trend is there, and will continue as gasoline becomes more expensive.
As for a governmental form, it would probably help to extend the borders of big cities so that they can capture the tax bases -- one of the main ways that cities deteriorated during the period of suburbanization was the loss of those fleeing suburbanites. There should certainly be regional planning.
Which leads me to another major problem: the lack of computer modeling of regional alternatives. I have some expertise, academic and professional, in computers (nowhere near yours) but enough to know that developing sophisticated computer models -- modeling agricultural, water, transportation, energy, housing, manufacturing, resources -- may be essential to understand how to make this transition -- and to show people that it could be a very attractive alternative.
I also have no idea if there is any experience deconstructing suburbs -- actually recycling or moving houses, etc. Does the farmland recover when you pull up concrete and asphalt? At this point, obviously, it's going very much in the other direction.
As far as Westchester is concerned, again, loosening the assumption of all cities being the size of NYC (NYC was a good example because I could get electricity figures for public transit, for example), White Plains is certainly a large enough city, and I would expect the richer suburbs to shrink last, not first. After all, the first suburbs were populated by the very rich, and may stay that way.
Anyway, some thoughts, thanks for the interest!
Permalink
Delay And Deny Posted 10:46 am
20 Jan 2008
What we really need to do is to try and move to a Type I civilization as defined by Michio Kaku:
http://www.mkaku.org/articles/physics_of_inter.php
Type I: this civilization harnesses the energy output of an entire planet.
...
By contrast, we are a Type 0 civilization, which extracts its energy from dead plants (oil and coal). Growing at the average rate of about 3% per year, however, one may calculate that our own civilization may attain Type I status in about 100-200 years, Type II status in a few thousand years, and Type III status in about 100,000 to a million years. These time scales are insignificant when compared with the universe itself.
John A. Bailo
Inhofe 400 Wannabe
My Log
Permalink
Jon Rynn Posted 12:18 pm
20 Jan 2008
Permalink
JohnMashey Posted 12:35 pm
20 Jan 2008
-John Mashey
Permalink
Jon Rynn Posted 1:18 pm
20 Jan 2008
Permalink
JohnMashey Posted 4:56 am
21 Jan 2008
Here might be some places to look:
http://www.stevekrause.org/steve_krause_blog/2007/10/revi ...
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/001622.html
-John Mashey
Permalink
Jon Rynn Posted 5:34 am
21 Jan 2008
Permalink
1Eco Posted 1:42 am
24 Jan 2008
WHEN WILL THAT BE?
Anyone here running for office?
City? County? State? National?
When money is taken out of politics, leadership changes. When will that BE?
Ecosystems empowerment for the rural poor.
Permalink
amazingdrx Posted 2:36 am
24 Jan 2008
The one thing the US still produces, crazy celebrities.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
Permalink
Delay And Deny Posted 4:43 am
26 Jan 2008
Startup Says It Can Make Ethanol for $1 a Gallon, and Without Corn
A biofuel startup in Illinois can make ethanol from just about anything organic for less than $1 per gallon, and it wouldn't interfere with food supplies, company officials said.
Coskata, which is backed by General Motors and other investors, uses bacteria to convert almost any organic material, from corn husks (but not the corn itself) to municipal trash, into ethanol.
"It's not five years away, it's not 10 years away. It's affordable, and it's now," said Wes Bolsen, the company's vice president of business development.
Viva la Climate Resistance!
Permalink
Delay And Deny Posted 6:09 am
26 Jan 2008
http://www.siliconvalley.com/venturecapital/ci_8085419?nc ...
But critics of ethanol - ethyl-alcohol fuel, mostly made by fermenting sugars - fret that it now comes from corn, in an energy-intensive, environmentally damaging, costly process that also leads to higher grocery bills.
ZeaChem, a Menlo Park company, thinks it has a solution to those drawbacks. Using a proprietary combination of biotechnology and chemistry, ZeaChem says it can produce more affordable ethanol with wood chips, not corn, using less energy in the process.
Ethanol, and especially cellulosic ethanol that comes from the fibrous materials of plants, has gotten a lot of buzz in recent months. The energy bill signed by President Bush in the waning days of 2007 mandates a massive increase in ethanol production to 36 billion gallons by 2022. After 2015, nearly two-thirds of the ethanol, or 21 billion gallons, is supposed to come from non-corn sources, such as wood, switchgrass or stover, the non-kernel part of corn.
Viva la Climate Resistance!
Permalink
amazingdrx Posted 3:14 pm
07 Feb 2008
Hate to say I told you so...
http://blogs.wsj.com/environmentalcapital/2008/01/23/more ...
"The University of California at Berkeley's Transportation Sustainability Research Center told the California Air Resources Board that ethanol could be twice as bad as gasoline, from a carbon-emissions point of view. How? Basically by turning land now covered with trees, grass, and other natural "carbon sinks" into farmland for corn and other crops used for ethanol. (Ethanol's dirty secret has also recently been explored by Science and other magazines.)
"Simply said, ethanol production today using U.S. corn contributes to the conversion of grasslands and rainforest to agriculture, causing very large GHG emissions," wrote Berkeley profs Alex Farrell and Michael O'Hare in a January 12 memo to California regulators. "Even if only a small fraction of the emissions calculated in this crude way [through land use change] are added to estimates of direct emissions for corn ethanol, total emissions for corn ethanol are higher than for fossil fuels."
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
Permalink